Louis Walsh reportedly held up The X Factor filming by half an hour and forced the show to start with one empty judging seat.

The ITV singing contest stalwart was so late to a recent audition day that the show had to go on without him, said The Sun.

Apparently late Louis kept judges Gary Barlow, Sharon Osbourne and Nicole Scherzinger, auditionees and the crowd waiting for half an hour as he was still in his hotel, but took so long that filming had to go ahead for the first 30 minutes without him before he finally showed up.

An X Factor source said: "Louis always used to be the first to arrive for the show but recently he has been later and later. Now he tends to be the last judge to arrive and on Wednesday we had to start filming without him because he was running so late.

"He was still in his hotel when the other judges were at the studio, so producers pushed back the schedule by half an hour. But he still wasn't there. The whole team were tearing their hair out but there were 40 hopefuls due to audition that day, so they had no choice but to start with an empty seat.

"Luckily the other three judges saw the funny side."

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